Churches

Sooner or later, the curious traveller will end up at Rosslyn. Not far from Edinburgh, it is a magnet for mystics, myth-lovers, madmen, movie-goers and the mildly interested. It has been claimed that the chapel was built by the Knights…

The Victorian novel, “Lorna Doone – a Romance of Exmoor”, is generally assumed to be a work of fiction, set in a stunning location on the borders of Devon and Somerset and against the turbulent historical backdrop of the Monmouth…

There are two villages called Warton in Lancashire, both of them with connections across the Pond. One, just west of Preston, is known for the airfield used by the United States Army Air Forces during World War Two. Further north,…

We thought we should go to the Cradle of Christianity in Scotland; the place where St Ninian, Scotland’s first Christian missionary, landed in 397AD and showed the pagan Picts The Way. There is a chapel there, near the Saint’s alleged…

We came upon St Hubert’s, my good friend and I, very late one night and many years’ ago. We were young, and had been indulging that well-known youthful pastime, ‘Visiting Old Places After Dark To See If You Get Scared’. …

You’ll find the small village of Dent, sometimes known locally as Dent Town, on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales. This was once part of Yorkshire’s West Riding but is now inside the county of Cumbria. The narrow roads…

Toki lost his lands when the Normans came. The new foreign aristocracy following Harold’s defeat at Hastings in 1066 swept aside Anglo-Saxon landowners, and poor Toki was one of the casualties. He was a thegn – which could mean a…

Robin Hood is one of England’s enduring legendary heroes. Deprived of his rightful inheritance and outlawed, Robert of Locksley (or Loxley) shelters in the King’s forest of Sherwood, where he assumes natural leadership over the vagabonds and other outlaws in…

If you didn’t know about this, you wouldn’t know it was there. If you know what I mean. A good friend told me about it – I’d been driving past for ages in blissful ignorance. Just east of Chollerford in…